


The Father, the Son, and the Social Justice Ghost

by Lawnmowergirl



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Family, Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Gen, Haunted House, Humanstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lawnmowergirl/pseuds/Lawnmowergirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat Vantas already has enough on his plate: grieving his mother's death, renovating a fixer-upper with his father, taking care of his hermit crab Ceegie, and starting high school in a whole new town. Having to deal with an annoying ghost haunting his new (old) house is a bit much to ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: This REALLY Old House

"This is the place?"

A nondescript gray car pulled up in front of the dusty old farmhouse with an air of finality. 

"Yup. What do you think of it, Karkat?"

The shutters creaked in the wind that stirred acres of neglected, knee-high grass.

"It looks...lonely."

And so did the grieving father and son, because they were. Loneliness hung between them; it surrounded them like a cold, heavy fog.

Karkat clung tightly to the small plastic tank on his lap, staring intently at the hermit crab that was dozing inside. "I miss Mom," he whispered softly to the little crustacean.

His father smiled sadly, pretending not to have overheard. He swung open the driver's side door and stepped out onto the loose, sandy dirt, then looked back over his shoulder at his son. "You coming, Karkat?"

Karkat didn't look up. He kept his red eyes firmly on the hermit crab. "Can I bring Ceegie in with me?"

Mr. Vantas smiled for what felt like the first time in months. "Of course. This'll be his new home too, after all. I figured you brought him in the car today because you wanted to show him around our new house."

Karkat nodded without saying anything. He carefully picked up Ceegie's terrarium with one arm and opened his door with the other. A sudden gust of wind blew straight into his face, and he shivered.

"It's a good thing it's so cloudy today," his dad remarked, trying to sound cheerful and not quite succeeding, "because I forgot to bring your sunscreen."

Karkat closed the passenger door with a bit more force than was strictly necessary, and the crappy little sedan rattled slightly. "Jesus Christ, Dad." He rolled his eyes. "Do you _want_ me to get skin cancer and die? Seriously, though, why don't you keep a bottle in the glove compartment or something?"

Mr. Vantas sighed. "Sorry, little crab. C'mon, you'll be fine."

  


The porch creaked so loudly under their feet that it startled Karkat slightly. When the key got stuck in the lock for a moment, the rusty tumblers refusing to yield, he started to feel apprehensive for reasons he couldn't quite identify. But then the door swung open with a long soft squeak, and the cool, dusty dimness inside was sweet relief to his sun-sensitive eyes.

The old farmhouse had two floors and an attic. There were five rooms downstairs and four upstairs. Not a single one of them was a bathroom.

"It's a real fixer-upper," Mr. Vantas said. He had the air of someone eager for a new challenge, but secretly he was just very tired.

"No shit," Karkat replied, as he fished a pencil stub out of his jacket pocket, set it down on the kitchen's checkered linoleum, and watched it roll away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: the farmhouse in this fic is directly inspired by an actual old farmhouse my uncle (who does a lot of antiques hunting) was cleaning out in the winter. He invited my mom and me to get first dibs on buying some of the stuff in the house. All descriptions of the layout and general condition of the house are as faithful and accurate as my memory will allow. The attic, however, is a bit of plot-necessitated speculation.


	2. Noises in the Attic

It was a few days later, when they were taking a break from unpacking, that it first began to happen. Karkat and his father were lounging on the sofa. Mr. Vantas was hunched over his laptop, comparing prices and reviews for various local contractors (because they couldn't use a rented port-a-potty forever, and sure as hell didn't want to), while his son napped, scowling darkly even in his sleep.

Rattle. Rattle. THUMP.

Karkat awoke with a panicked yelp and accidentally flailed himself off the couch. "Owww... What in the name of fuck was _that_?"

"I have no idea. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Karkat pulled himself up off the floor with a little help. "Thanks, Dad."

Creak. Squeak. Whoosh.

"Do...do you think we should go investigate?" Karkat bit his lip, trying to keep himself from fidgeting.

"Yeah. ...I think it's coming from the attic."

Karkat glanced around at a speed just shy of frantic as there was another thump. "Do we have a baseball bat or something?"

"Hm, I don't–"

"Ah-ha!" Karkat dashed across the room to snatch up a rusted harvesting sickle that had been laying long-forgotten in the corner. He sliced the air with it, grinning like an idiot in spite of himself.

His dad chuckled quietly. Karkat's smiles were rare — especially now — but just so fucking beautiful.

  


They crept up the stairs, Karkat leading the way because he was the one who was armed. His fearless facade cracked a little more with each creaking step. Mr. Vantas kept a white-knuckled death grip on the cell phone in his sweatshirt pocket. He had 911 on speed dial. The exterminator, too, if that turned out to be what was needed.

The trapdoor to the attic was open and the ladder was down. A warm, soft light — the kind only older lightbulbs can produce — shone from above. Karkat exchanged glances with his father, then slowly, tentatively tested his weight on the attic ladder. It creaked, like everything else in this house, but held. He gulped, swallowing thick, dry fear. Sickle still gripped firmly in one hand like a life preserver or a security blanket, Karkat cautiously pulled himself up to peer into the attic.

The space was empty except for a dusty cot in one corner (too low for anyone to hide under), a dim lightbulb, and the dust motes and cobwebs its eerily warm light glittered on. Karkat felt fresh air on his face and blinked in surprise.

He lowered himself back down by a couple of rungs. "There's nothing up there," he announced, "but the light's on, and the attic window is open."

Mr. Vantas scratched his head.

  


The following week, over the din of plumbing being installed, Karkat mentioned that one of his sweaters had gone missing. "It was the red one that Grandma made for me," he sighed, sliding a library-receipt bookmark into _Perl for Dummies_.

His dad frowned. "I'm sure it'll show up eventually. We're not completely done unpacking, after all."

  


And show up the sweater did, in flashes in the corners of Karkat's vision when he awoke, briefly, in the middle of the night. But these memories blurred, fading and melting into the vague memories of his dreams.

  


The strange noises from the attic continued. The light turned itself back on; the window reopened itself every time it was closed. Mr. Vantas called the exterminator. The old white farmhouse (slowly transforming into a home) was deemed, remarkably, entirely free of pests.

  


And then one night, a few weeks later, Karkat couldn't sleep. It was a cool summer night, like each of the others so far, and the branches of a nearby tree tickled his bedroom window. Karkat finally folded back the covers and abandoned his futile quest for respite. His bright yellow pajamas almost seemed to give off a light of their own in the darkened room. He could hear his father snoring in the next room over — the walls were thin; better insulation was on their list of upcoming projects — and Karkat smiled wryly, wishing he could be sound asleep like that.

He crept down the stairs and took an immediate left, into a smallish room that had been designated for his video games and movie collection and the last few boxes that had yet to be unpacked. Moonlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the stacks of games and DVDs (most of which were romantic comedies, his favorite guilty pleasure). 

Karkat had no trouble finding Skyrim and popping it into the PS3. But as soon as he had the system up and running — no, the instant his modestly-sized television lit up — he suddenly felt a presence in the room. He shuddered involuntarily and he could swear he could hear his pulse like the echo of a bass drum in stereo. But Karkat resisted the urge to turn around as he loaded up his save file. _It's nothing. Nuh- **fucking** -thing. Jesus Christ on a baked potato, Karkat, it's **nothing**. _

An unfamiliar voice, casually: "What is that?"

He whirled around and flung the controller, screaming like a banshee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry about the cliffhanger — I have a few more chapters' worth of writing done that just needs to be typed up and HTML-formatted, so the next part will be posted within the next few hours.


	3. Meetings

Karkat caught a brief glimpse, a blur of red wool and faint blue glow as his favorite PS3 controller passed right through the intruder and smacked into the wall.

"What the fuck are you doing in my house?!" he screeched. "How the hell did you get in here?! And that's my goddamn sweater you're wearing, you little—"

"I'm sorry, have I offended you? I must apologize." It was a boy who looked to be a few years older than Karkat, with red hair and freckles. Clad in a pilfered sweater and an eerie blueish glow, he stared back at Karkat with blank white eyes. "...that's a rather odd complexion you have."

"I have albinism, you dumbshit. If you genuinely don't want to offend me, don't call attention to MY FUCKING GENETIC MUTATION!"

Just then, Karkat's dad appeared in the doorway, pajama-clad and brandishing a pitchfork they'd found in the shed the day before. "Karkat, I heard a scream, are you alri—" He blinked sleepily and lowered the farming implement. "You didn't tell me you were having a sleepover."

"That's because I'm _not_!" Karkat rolled his eyes.

"Oh." Mr. Vantas tightened his grip on the pitchfork. Then he took a closer look at the intruder. "...A ghost?"

The spectre cleared his throat. "I would prefer a term without so many negative sociohistorical and cultural connotations, such as 'mortality-deficit individual', but yes."

"Are you what's been making those noises and messing around in our attic?"

"I am the person _who_ has been doing those things."

Karkat's father took a momentary break from arguing semantics with the ghost to put down the pitchfork. He picked up the PS3 controller and held it up, one eyebrow quirked.

"I threw it at him," Karkat explained. "...It's not broken, is it?"

"I don't think so."

Karkat breathed a sigh of relief, then turned back to their ectoplasmic visitor. "Okay, ghost...person...whatever. What's your name? And, just as importantly, why in the name of all that is sane and reasonable in this mindbogglingly ridiculous sack of crap we call human existence are you WEARING MY SWEATER?!"

His father stepped over to hug him, deftly avoiding stepping on the scattered components of a recently-toppled DVD stack. "Well, to be honest, Karkat, you never did wear it..."

Karkat writhed in his dad's embrace. "But Grandma made it for me! It's a treasured memento! Give it back, you phantasmal asshat!"

Mr. Vantas did his best to hold his son still. "You still haven't told us your name, you know," he mentioned diplomatically.

"I've half a mind to be offended, _you know_." The ghost boy pouted, scrunching up his freckly face. "Actually, perhaps I should consider rewording that statement, as it may be construed as insensitive to the mentally ill. This would be in poor taste, especially considering that one of my closest friends is mentally ill." He paused for a moment. "Oh, of course. Where was I? Ah, my name. I cannot entirely fault you for making such a callous assumption, as the living always do since almost none of them go without at least some sort of moniker or other means of address for very long, but I cannot help but feel offense. It is, you see, one of the few things I retain the capability of feeling. Kinetically speaking I am an invalid, and I would appreciate it if you treated the subject with caution. At any rate, back to my initial point: I am certain I must have had a name at some point, but due tl disuse I'm afraid I no longer remember it."

Mr. Vantas had long since released his hold on his son, and they both stood there staring numbly, their mouths fallen open. A dictionary entry for the word "agape" could easily have been illustrated by a photo of thirty-six-year-old widower Samesh Vantas and his thirteen-year-old son Karkat at this moment.

The elder Vantas regained his composure first. "But...well, is there anything we can call you?"

"Other than," Karkat added, "y'know, _sweater-stealing, electricity-wasting ectoplasmic nuisance_?"

The ghost huffed and crossed his wool-swathed arms. "How about...Kankri."

Mr. Vantas laughed quietly through his nose. "He must have been there when I signed the paperwork," he whispered to Karkat. "I dont know if I've ever told you this, but that's my middle name."

"Wait, you include your middle name in your signature?" Karkat muttered incredulously.

"Well, not always. But I did this time because it wasn't much extra effort, since I had to sign less papers than usual."

Karkat laughed without really knowing why. "I think you mean _fewer_."

  


Getting adjusted to living with a ghost, let alone one as long-winded as Kankri, would be a serious challenge. When Karkat started as a freshman at the local high school, he began to make new friends. Two of them, Sollux Captor and Aradia Megido, turned out to be amateur ghost hunters.

"Maybe they could help us out," Karkat said one evening over dinner. It was day three of their quest to find a decent Indian takeout place out here, and he was starting to get sick of even his favorite curry.

"I hope they don't charge too much," his dad joked, "because we're already over budget on home improvement... and crappy takeout. Jeez, maybe I should just dig up mama's recipes and make it myself."

  


Karkat brought his friends home with him after school the next day. Aradia was a lively girl with an olive complexion and mounds of fluffy chestnut hair. Sollux was a lanky Asian boy with heterochromia and two-color glasses frames. They were lugging something that looked like a criminally hideous suitcase covered in tubes and wires and bits of tinfoil and duct tape.

"Hi, Dad," Karkat said. "Sorry I'm late. We had to stop by Aradia's house on the way here so we could pick up this pile of junk." He gestured at the odd suitcase-y contraption.

His father was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a sandwich. He blinked.

Aradia's eyes were practically sparkling. "Wow... Karkat, your house really _is_ old!"

"Um, hello," Mr. Vantas said, standing up with the sandwich still in his hand. "You must be Aradia and Sollux. Your son has told me a lot about you."

"It's nice to meet you!" Aradia said sweetly. She even added a little curtsy.

Sollux, on the other hand, simply remarked, "Wow, KK, you really weren't lying when you thaid your dad wearth really high pantths."

The man in question just blinked and took a bite of his sandwich.

"Please excuse my dear friend _Thollukth_ ", Karkat said. "He knows not what he does."

"Wow, f—...eff you too, KK."

Mr. Vantas blinked again. Aradia rolled her eyes and smiled in wry amusement.

"Uh, I'll see you later, Dad," Karkat said, heading towards the stairs with his friends in tow.

His father laughed quietly to himself and sat back down to finish his sandwich.


End file.
